Join and Share
Social Shorpy
To love Shorpy is to like him. Our goal: 10k "likes":
Recent comments
- Laudanum Served Ahead
- Good enough for Hollywood
- BB-6
- Men in Bloomers
- Found It!
- Driving the "W"
- There's a lot going on
- Storage Space
- Doesn't quite show
- Re: Signal smorgasbord
- The Great White Fleet
- Pappy Van Tine
- "Lots of night games"
- There's No Crying In Baseball
- Railroad Crossing
- Bell Tower gone
- Progress
- My Whatzit guess
- Let's Play Catch
- Still there, an Olmstead park
- Today
- Up to code?
- Could it be Lincoln's church?
- Ouch
- Early Winnebago
- On the fence
- Bell tower
- It Carried Cars, Too.
- Walking all over town
- Graflex shooters
Member Photos
Photos submitted by Shorpy members.
Colorized Photos
Colorized photos submitted by members.
About the Photos
Most of the photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs, 20 to 200 megabytes in size) from the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) Many were digitized by LOC contractors using a Sinar studio back. They are adjusted by your webmaster for contrast and color in Photoshop before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here.
Image Galleries
Search Shorpy
Today's Top 5
The Shorpy Store!
Wheel of Fire: 1943
Submitted by Dave on Thu, 05/03/2007 - 4:13am.
Re-tiring a locomotive driver wheel in the Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe railway shops at Shopton, near Fort Madison, Iowa. March 1943. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano.
VIEW HI-DEF IMAGE | BUY THIS PHOTO | VISIT THE PRINT GALLERY
On Shorpy:
Today's Top 5
Today's Top 5
This process was also known
Submitted by oldtimer on Thu, 05/07/2009 - 11:29am.
as "sweating" on a tire.
These series of photos are fantastic!
Fire Wheel
Submitted by Paul Searls on Thu, 02/14/2008 - 8:35pm.
This is an interesting shot but I believe the picture should be rotated 90 degrees clockwise. The heavy steel support illuminated below the flames is a stand that supports the axle and keeps the wheel off the ground. Notice the flames also point to the left (up). Nevertheless, this is a beautiful example of a common maintenance procedure on a steam locomotive. The steel tire is separate from the cast steel wheel center. The inside of the tire is machined several thousandths of an inch smaller than the wheel center. It's heated by fire from a ring of gas pipe. As the tire gets hot, it expands and is then driven onto the cooler wheel center by workmen with sledge hammers. It's then clamped into position and allowed to cool and shrinks tightly on the wheel. Jack Delano's photography captures the essence of railroading of this era with elegance and sensitivity.
[The wheel has been rotated. Below, a clearer view of the procedure. - Dave]
Delano Picts
Submitted by Anonymous Tipster on Fri, 05/11/2007 - 2:01pm.
Did Jack work for the Santa Fe RR, or was he an avid railfan like many of us are especially me? I know you told me that he passed away 10 yrs ago, has his family saved and ever thought of giving his great pictures to Trains & Railfan mags? How were you able to get the photos? I'd like to know more about jack and who he was and how he lived.
Fire Wheel
Submitted by Anonymous Tipster on Thu, 05/03/2007 - 1:27pm.
Great picture would like to see more RR shop pictures
THE 100-YEAR-OLD PHOTO BLOG
Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.
RSS | Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Photo Use | © 2012 Shorpy Inc.